… set to music. It’s not all Steve Grand, though I am fond of Grand (posting on his gay love song “All-American Boy” here, on his gay cover of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” here). Then yesterday (while it was still Valentine’s Day), from Phil Jensen, a link to a video of “Young Love” by Eli Lieb, which you can watch here. To come: a bit about Lieb; the lyrics for this song; a video of a cute (and somewhat dirty) love song by actor, comedian, and singer-songwriter Mat Burrow; and a couple lists of gay love songs for V-Day, lists that don’t overlap with one another and that don’t mention Grand or Burrow (though Lieb is at the top of the second list).
About Lieb. From Wikipedia:
Eli Lieb … is an independent American pop singer-songwriter from Fairfield, Iowa. He resides in Los Angeles, where he is working on his second album
In 2009, Lieb began recording covers of popular songs to YouTube from his home in Fairfield. His videos quickly began accruing a large number of views, and the positive response he received online encouraged him to release his first album, the self-titled Eli Lieb, independently on October 25, 2011. Lieb wrote, recorded, and produced the album on his own in Fairfield.
Lieb’s single “Young Love” was released in July 2013, with music blog Idolator calling it “an instantly catchy, uplifting pop/rock anthem that sounds like a cross between Katy Perry and Bruce Springsteen.” In October 2013, Lieb’s YouTube cover of Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball” went viral and was supported through social media by singers Adam Lambert and Lucy Hale.
Lieb is openly gay, a subject that returns repeatedly in his songs and music videos.
The lyrics. Full of aching desire and extravagant avowals of love, very much a young man’s song. With repeats removed:
when I was twenty two the day that I met you
when you took my hand through the night
it was getting late and you asked me to stay
and hold you until we see light
you shut the door and turn the lights off
and put up your dukes tonightcause this love is getting dangerous and I need some more tonight
your touch is contagious you know what I need tonight
I can’t run and I can’t hide
I’ll be wasted by the light
I’m undone but I’m alive
don’t ever wanna see the morning lightwhen I was young in love when you were everything
we’d stay up and drink through the night
laying on the roof I put my hands on you
you said our love will never dieand if we go down with this ship
we go down together
and if we should die tonight
it’s you and me forever
forever you and I
together until we die
and I’ll be right next to you
even on the other side
Mat Burrow. Stumbled on Burrow’s sweet and racy ode to the actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, “A Love Song for JGL”, while looking for gay long songs. You can watch a performance here. “JGL, I don’t know you that well / But I think you’re talented and hot as hell” and on from there. So far, Burrow’s love for JGL has gone unrequited.
Two lists of gay love songs: Queerty’s “Ten Great Gay Love Songs To Crack The Toughest Cynic” (with links to videos); and from The New Gay site, “The Indie Rock Fag’s” Top 17 Homo Love Songs. Neither is restricted to young gay love, but both (not surprisingly) incline that way. The first is more slanted to recent music, the second more to older stuff.
Queerty: Rufus Wainwright, “The Art Teacher”; Matt Alber, “Handsome Man”; Sufjan Stevens, “The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out To Get Us”; Hercules and Love Affair featuring John Grant, “I Try To Talk To You”; Sam Smith, “Nirvana”; Cosmo Jarvis, “Gay Pirates”; R.E.M., “Be Mine”; Broken Social Scene, “I’m Still Your Fag”; Mashrou’ Leila, “Shim El Yasmine”; Indigo Girls, “Power of Two”
Indie Rock Fag: CSS, “Lets Make Love and Listen to Death From Above”; Patrick Wolf, “The Magic Position”; The Smiths, “There is a Light That Never Goes Out”; Antony and The Johnsons, “Hope There’s Someone”; Queen, “Somebody to Love”; Tracy Chapman, “Fast Car”; The Damned, “Jet Boy Jet Girl”; Peaches, “Fuck The Pain Away”; David Bowie, “Kooks”; Electronic, “Getting Away With It”; Alison Moyet, “Love Resurrection”/ Yaz, “Only You”; Dusty Springfield, “Breakfast in Bed”; Belle and Sebastian, “Judy and The Dream of Horses”; Velvet Underground, “Pale Blue Eyes”; Hedwig and The Angry Inch, “Wicked Little Town”; Magnetic Fields, “Papa Was a Rodeo” and “100,000 Fireflies” (with Stephin Merritt, you can’t pick just one); Eli Lieb, Young Love (music video)
Bonus: older gay love. By a wonderful coincidence, today’s morning name (which came to me out of the blue, as usual) was Colton Ford, the former gay pornstar, who has always been openly, celebratorily gay. Ford is 52 now, and I was aware of his career in non-pornographic film, tv, and stage acting, but I’d somehow missed his career as a club / dance / house singer-songwriter (with four albums to his credit so far). The man is a very hot graying muscle daddy, quite something to see, and he records gay love songs, among other things. For instance, from his first album, Tug of War, “The Way You Love Me” (“makes me want you more”), which you can watch here.
I’ll post more about Ford, né Glenn Soukesian, in a separate Morning Names posting.
February 15, 2016 at 8:29 am |
A friend in the lgbt precincts of soc-motss on Facebook writes:
I could have added many other gay love sngs, but then I never fucking claimed to be listing them all, or even all the ones I liked; I was just giving a few examples that I had come across, plus two lists of favorites that other people had posted. And for this, I get an aggressive, accusatory comment telling me that I’d failed by not mentioning the Pet Shop Boys’ “Rent”. The friendly, helpful way to add this to my posting would have been just to say something like: here’s a song that’s a favorite of mine.
February 15, 2016 at 10:21 am |
Of course there’s nothing in those lyrics that says anything about the gender of either party.
February 16, 2016 at 10:24 am |
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